Guidelines for the Practice of Building Enclosure Engineering

The City of Vancouver introduced a requirement in Part 5 of the 1999 Vancouver Building Bylaw (VBBL) that a Building Envelope Professional undertake design review, “enhanced field review” and provide letters of assurance that the components and assemblies of the project substantially comply with the requirements of Part 5 of the VBBL and with the plans and specifications accepted by the City on application for building permit. This requirement applied to all multi*residential buildings and buildings of framed construction.

This action made the practice of building enclosure engineering (or building envelope engineering, or applied building science) a mandatory requirement in a major jurisdiction. This started a process of defining and formalizing the practice of building enclosure engineering in British Columbia. In 1999, the Council of the Association of
Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of the Province of British Columbia (APEGBC) adopted the first version of “Guidelines for Professional Practice Building Envelope Professional Engineer”.

More recently, members of the Building Envelope Committee of APEGBC reviewed the 1999 document and other relevant documents, such as AIBC’s Bulletin 34, endorsed by APEGBC, and produced a document entitled Guidelines for Building Enclosure Engineering Services for Part 3 Building Project. APEGBC’s Council is expected to formally adopt these guidelines in the near future. These guidelines set out the standards of practice that a Building Enclosure Engineer should follow and meet when providing building enclosure engineering services for building projects.

The guidelines reflect the current state of practice in jurisdictions where application of independent building science expertise is both mandatory and mature. The logic and contents of the guideline should be of interest to practitioners and building code authorities.